Capitaland strikes into India with a joint venture

CapitaLand enters into the Indian retail property market after it announced a tie-up with Mumbai-listed Pantaloon, which is also India's largest listed retailing group. The deal that was announced with Pantaloon includes:
1) Setting up a 50:50 JV retail management company to provide management services to retail properties owned or managed by Pantaloon and related funds, and future funds to be created by CapitaLand and Pantaloon. The JV company aims to manage a portfolio of about 50 malls, which equates to around 15m sqf of space worth US$1.2bn (S$1.9bn) across 30 Indian cities within the next two to three years.
2) Another 50:50 JV fund management company that will create a retail development fund, a retail income fund or retail real estate investment trusts (Reits) to capture the tremendous growth in the Indian retail real estate market. For such funds or Reits, CapitaLand plans to invest 20 to 40% as a sponsor, or wherever allowed under Indian regulations.
3) A US$75m (S$121m) investment stake in Horizon Realty Fund, an international fund sponsored by by Pantaloon. This fund, which will invest in predominantly retail real estate development assets in India, has an initial closing of US$263m and a target fund size of US$350m. If it reaches this target fund size, CapLand will have a 21% stake. The fund has identified four potential investments - in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata - worth US$330m (S$534m) for 4.1m sf GFA, slated for completion by 2008-2009.

These 3 tie-ups have shown that Capitaland has the expertise of managing and funding real estate development and is true to Capitaland's vision of moving away from a traditional property developer into a real estate funding and management company.